Calgary Flames Game Day 12: A showdown with the Predators (7pm MT)

On Saturday, the Calgary Flames (3-7-1, 7 points) won their first game in awhile. On Tuesday, the Flames will host the Nashville Predators (5-6-0, 10 points) in an attempt to win a second game in a row. If that’s successful, they’ll try to continue that trend. The Flames have dug themselves a bit of a hole, standings-wise, but they’ve played a couple pretty good games and perhaps, just maybe, they’ve turned the corner a bit.

The broadcast begins at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

Huberdeau – Lindholm – Dube
Zary – Kadri – Sharangovich
Pospisil – Backlund – Coleman
Greer – Ruzicka – Duehr

Weegar – Andersson
Hanifin – Tanev
Zadorov – DeSimone

Jacob Markstrom is projected to start, backed up by Dan Vladar. The projected extras are Dryden Hunt and Dennis Gilbert. Andrew Mangiapane will miss this game as he serves his one-game suspension for cross-checking Jared McCann. Connor Zary plays his third NHL game and Martin Pospisil plays his second. Adam Ruzicka returns to the lineup after being absent with an upper body injury for four games.

Looking back at things, the Flames have played fairly well dating back to the midway point of the second period of the Heritage Classic against Edmonton. They played a pretty good hockey game against Dallas but made just enough mistakes to lose. They played another pretty good game against Seattle, but made few enough mistakes to win.

The Flames are a team that needs to play a consistent, responsible style of hockey to win games. It’s a challenging style of game to play, but they’ve managed to do it fairly well for the last 2.5 hockey games. Let’s see if they can string together another three periods of it against Nashville.

Keep an eye on Mikael Backlund. He’s playing his 920th game and is just three points away from reaching 500 in his NHL career.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

Forsberg – O’Reilly – Nyquist
Sherwood – Novak – Evangelista
Trenin – Sissons – Smith
Foudy – Parssinen – Tomasino

Josi – Fabbro
Lauzon – Carrier
Del Gaizo – Barrie

Juuse Saros is expected to start for the Predators, back up by Kevin Lankinen. Their projected extras are Samuel Fagemo and Michael McCarron.

This is the fourth game of a five game western road trip for Nashville. They lost to Seattle and Vancouver to dip below .500, but they beat Edmonton by a 5-2 score on Saturday evening at Rogers Place. The Predators have been a win-one, lose-one hockey club this season and, like the Flames, are hoping that sooner or later the pieces they have on their team snap into place within a cohesive hole.

Keep an eye on Filip Forsberg and Ryan O’Reilly, as they’ve both been really effective point producers early on this season.

The Flames are without Oliver Kylington, Jakob Pelletier and Kevin Rooney.

The Predators are without Luke Schenn, Cody Glass and Ryan McDonagh.

This is the first of three meetings between these teams this season. They meet twice more, both in Nashville: once in late November and again in January.